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President’s Budget Anticipated, New Rental Assistance Initiative Expected

Following custom that calls for the President to release his budget for the following fiscal year on the first Monday of February, President Barack Obama is expected to send his FY11 budget request to Congress on February 1.

President Obama announced the week of January 25 his intent to freeze the overall funding level for non-military, international, veterans, and homeland security discretionary funding for three years. White House budget officials said the FY11 request will not include across-the-board cuts to achieve such a discretionary spending freeze. Instead, program expenditures have been evaluated line by line, with some programs slated for increases and some for decreases.

Despite these troubling developments, NLIHC anticipates that the HUD budget will escape cuts, and is hopeful that the President will include funding for the National Housing Trust Fund in his request, as he did for FY10. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan will describe the details of the HUD budget and several new initiatives that are expected in a meeting and webcast on February 1 from 2 pm to 3:30 pm ET. 

Several new housing initiatives are expected in the President’s HUD budget request. Of particular note is the “Transforming Rental Assistance” (TRA) initiative, a voluntary program to convert funding for some public and assisted housing to a new type of project based voucher. While details about the TRA initiative will not be available until the President’s budget is released, the goals of the initiative are expected to include preserving valuable housing resources, streamlining program requirements, expanding financing opportunities for public housing agencies, and increasing mobility options for tenants. 

HUD officials Sandra Henriquez, assistant secretary for Public and Indian Housing, and Barbara Sard, senior advisor for rental assistance in the Office of the Secretary, will discuss the TRA initiative in a webcast scheduled for Wednesday, February 3, from 11 am to 12:30 pm ET.

These webcasts will be part of a series of budget webcasts the week of February 1 designed to present HUD’s vision for the FY11 proposed budget and specific initiatives within the budget. The complete schedule of webcasts is as follows (all times ET):

Budget Overview Town Hall (with Secretary Donovan): February 1, 2 pm-3:30 pm

Transforming Rental Assistance: February 3, 11 am-12:30 pm

Capacity Building: February 3, 2:30 pm-4 pm

What the HUD Budget Does to Address Homelessness: February 4, 2 pm-3:30 pm

On the day of each scheduled program, advocates can view webcasts at:  http://www.hud.gov/webcasts/index.cfm

Webcast archives will be available within 24-48 hours after each program ends at: http://www.hud.gov/webcasts/archives/